It has been an exciting year so far and we are looking forward to a fantastic convention, Dance Up a Storm. It will be Vancouver's third convention, so hang on because they know how to throw a great party. As you get prepped for your trip, remember that a majority of us will be visiting another country so be sure to have all the appropriate paperwork in order so that you can have a worry-free and wonderful time. We look forward to seeing you all.

As we prepare for the Executive Board meeting in Vancouver, the officers have decided to email the agenda and packet information to clubs and the official delegates that are registered on the IAGSDC® website. Due to the cost of printing, we WILL NOT be providing a printed copy at the meeting. It will be up to each delegate to come to the meeting prepared with their own packet. We will also provide a link on the website for anyone else interested in downloading the information. The IAGSDC® wants the information provided in delegate's packet to be shared with their member clubs and we hope this will increase the awareness of the information it contains ahead of the meeting. Over the last twelve months the officers and I have worked hard to make sure the IAGSDC® is stable organization with a steady plan for the future. We are working to keep up with how clubs are functioning and how we need to communicate with member clubs and the square dance community.

We do not want to lose contact with IAGSDC® clubs and their members. At last years Executive Board meeting, the officers were told that much of the communication that was being sent out was not getting to the clubs. So we've made changes to how we update club and contact information along with making clubs aware of who is responsible for receiving and updating club information. We want to make sure that you are all informed, by using Facebook, Twitter, our website and this newsletter we hope to achieve that goal. But we also need your ongoing help, by being aware of who should be delivering information at the local level and making sure they are consistently communicating with your club. As you will read through this issue you will see several projects that we believe will benefit clubs and steamline our communication process.

We also don't want to lose sight of the need to reach out to communities and attract new dancers. The Petersen Fund has been an amazing gift to our association over its lifetime and as it winds down, we need to help clubs transition to the process that All Join Hands will have in place to grant funds for projects and promotion. We will be working with All Join Hands to smooth this process and make sure that the work of the Petersen Fund will continue. Thank you and see you in a square soon,
Robert Hazen
IAGSDC® Chairman
chair@iagsdc.org

New in this version is an improved navigation menu, grouping all the information you need into one set of menus. The menus will change depending on whether you are logged in to the system, and on what permissions you have to change or view content. Also new, is the grouping of our social media tools. This brings together our Twitter and Facebook feeds,our Youtube channel, and links to allow you to send a tweet directly to all IAGSDC® members, or to suggest a video that we should add to the IAGSDC® channel.

One of the most popular pages is the Event Calendar. A new search feature has been added to allow easy searching for fly-ins, conventions, and other types of event, and by location (state/region) or caller. All events will now be included in the main events listing. for easier access (Previously, we listed one-day events on a separate page)

Informational sections are also being improved, with articles that explain how the IAGSDC® runs, and help for dancers interested in creating their own clubs.

There are many more changes to the public content, but some of the biggest changes are 'behind the scenes'. These affect the event registration system. This has been streamlined with new menus, reports, and features to make event management easier. New features will help clubs add PayPal options to their events, as well as increasing accuracy of dancer registrations, eliminating accidental duplication of user profiles. More details will be available at convention in Vancouver

Dear loyal subjects:
How thrilled and humbled we have been to be your Honky Tonk Queen! We are so very pleased that the panel of judges showed such excellent taste and supreme wisdom, to select us to reign over all of you darling little people in the IAGSDC®. Our sincerest gratitude to all of those who helped us prepare for the pageant, including cosmetological consultant LuWanda B. Astarr, coiffeuse Florence Bush (who does such AMAZING things with a single toilet paper roll!), and Mrs. Manischewitz. Kisses also to Phil, Rob, Trevor, Rick and Steven. Of course, we must also thank those who were of invaluable assistance the previous year (as opposed to valuable ~ after all, we did not win that time!): our seamstress Tony; our fluffer Terence (we're talking crinolines ~ get your minds out of the gutter!); and the ever bemused Jerry.

Kudos to Her Royal Highness Ima Cornholder, Honky Tonk Queen 2010 (henceforth forever known as Old Queen), who reigned fabulously through the previous year and mounted a stupendous production in Atlanta. (There are varying reports on whatever else she may have mounted.) And my, how high she has set the bar for fashion! We are not sure how well we will be able to measure up, especially considering the fact we will be crossing an international border. As they say, "heavy is the head that wears the crown", and that crown is awfully heavy, let us tell you! We are hard at work preparing a dazzling, momentous, and overall exceedingly magnificent extravaganza for your enjoyment in Vancouver. Our producer began developing a theme and lining up acts on the voyage home from Atlanta ~ he kept chattering away about it, not giving us a single wink of sleep! He is even dreaming up our first music video. (By the by, our producer is himself a veteran of the silver screen, having appeared with Matt Dillon in the Walt Disney production of TEX. He tells us that acting as a high school basketball game spectator is very hard work when nothing is happening down on the court, and if we should not believe him we are to ask Meg Tilly. In case you missed it in the theaters, or want to relive it again in the comfort of your living room, our producer's performance in TEX is preserved for posterity on DVD,look very closely for the orange shirt! Disclaimer: Her Majesty and her producer have no connections or business relationships with Walt Disney Productions ~ alas.)

Since being crowned, Your Queen has had a few rare opportunities to appear in public. The first two were in Chicago, and both not as herself but "in costume": first, at the Great Chicago Crossfire as "Queen Mother of the Bride", and then at the Chi-Town Squares Halloween dance as "Lesley Gored-Tex" (the latter being a highly undignified guise bordering on parody, dreamt up by our producer and suggested by his partner). Since that time our producer has kept busy at his "day job" and has even required US to work for HIM! But we were finally able to sneak away for a fabulous whirlwind spring tour of the fly-ins, appearing in dazzling disco attire in St. Louis, delightful Dutch apparel in Grand Rapids, and sensational swimwear in Rehoboth Beach, having the opportunity to mingle with all of you dear little people!

In closing, we entreat all of the queens-to-be in the square dance clubs across the globe to be getting ready to participate in the IAGSDC® Honky Tonk Queen Pageant in Vancouver on Sunday, July 1, 2012. Our theme is AMERICAN BANDSTAND, 1960s girl group era. Be thinking crinolines, crinolines, square dance, crinolines, glamour, crinolines, music, crinolines, hair, and crinolines! Be ready to demonstrate your knowledge of popular music and square dancing, and to dazzle the audience and judges with your talent (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). Performance numbers,one each per contestant please, must be limited to two minutes and thirty seconds, no more (but less is quite acceptable)! Be forewarned: a surfeit of entrants may very well mean limited opportunity to best your competition. But you can do it! Be big! Be bold! Be beautiful! (Well, two out of three ain't bad.)

This electronic edition of the IAGSDC® Newsletter has been emailed to all those who have an email address on file with IAGDSC®. Please feel free to forward it to those who may be interested.
Email any feedback to: IAGSDC® Newsletter. Suggestions for content and/or if you would like to write an article for future issues, may also be submitted by email in text format. Thank-you

We are in the heart of downtown for this convention, in close proximity to great shopping and amazing restaurants. Yaletown, Gastown and Granville Island are all a short walk or brief transit trip away. For those looking for a "gay old time", the Gay Village is only 10 minutes away. A few blocks north, the Seawall calls the walkers to the Harbour and Stanley Park, eventually leading to English Bay.

You will be swept off your feet by the energy and skill of the best Square Dance Callers, who will join with us to create an unforgettable experience for everyone. Summer in Vancouver is spectacular, warm but not hot, with the gentle breezes from the Pacific ocean coming in off the coast. We look forward to welcoming you with good, old fashioned Canadian hospitality, sharing an amazing weekend, and then bidding farewell with a promise to ''See you in San Francisco".

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The Petersen Fund & Rainbow Trust
Keith Gehrig
The Petersen Fund was created and funded by the Rainbow Trust out of the estate of Joe Petersen (a member of the Rocky Mountain Rainbeaus). The Trust has finally paid out its last check to the Petersen Fund. In a period of over 14 years, the trust has given out $163,000. The IAGSDC® is forever grateful for the investment that Joe made in promoting gay square dancing.
Each year at convention, the Petersen Fund committee meets to discuss the grant proposals set in by the member clubs. Each year we approve grants from 9 to 15 member clubs. Funding covers recruitment expenses such as PRIDE events, intro dances and other means of attracting new people to this activity that we so love. In Chicago, the committee funded grants from 11 clubs to the amount of $11,345.38. In Atlanta, the number of grants was 11 for a total of $12, 401.44. With the end of funding from the Rainbow Trust, the Petersen Fund's balance is running out. Currently, less than $13,000 is left for what will be the last round of grants this year in Vancouver BC. Make sure your clubs take advantage of this gift that we've been given and promote square dancing in your community. Request forms are can be found online on the IAGSDC® website.

New Travelling Displays